


Nightmares are the greatest ghost

by MorganBaggins



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Comics), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hope, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-12 22:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20571686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganBaggins/pseuds/MorganBaggins
Summary: The problem with nightmares is that you can't defeat them by running away. (Set primarily during season 8 of the comics, but knowledge of the comics isn't necessary). Andrew learns to cope with nightmares and the loss of his friends.





	Nightmares are the greatest ghost

Andrew Wells avoided solitude like vampires avoid sunlight. During the day, it was easy. At first, he had the Trio. Then, he had Jonathan. Of course, he didn’t realize how much Jonathan meant to him at the time. Everything was overshadowed by the depth of his grief over losing Warren. At the time, he had thought that grief was the deepest most painful feeling, but it was nothing compared to how he felt once he lost Jonathan. Once he _murdered_ him. Andrew tried to accept responsibility for that without dwelling on it. It was a balancing act he hadn’t quite mastered. _Like The Force,_ he would think, drifting into a daydream in which he was Anakin Skywalker, training under Jedi Master Yoda, being warned not to go to the Dark Side...

Buffy and the Scoobies had helped keep the loneliness at bay, even when they were keeping him hostage. He told himself they cared about him - they were the good guys, right? The heroes. Heroes always believed in redemption. He just had to make himself useful, prove he could be trusted - he had to be Rogue, proving his loyalty to the X-Men (Buffy) over the Brotherhood (The First). 

After the apocalypse, Andrew was invited to join their team. Giles said he would train him to become a Watcher. It was like receiving his own personal Hogwarts acceptance letter (he asked Giles if he could write one up for him and send it by owl - Giles had rolled his eyes, said ‘For god’s sake, don’t make me regret this!’ Andrew promptly dropped the subject and made his own letter, ornately decorated, which he proudly displayed on his wall in Italy).

As a Watcher, Andrew spent his days surrounded by Slayers. Lessons were packed with vampire and demon lore, fighting essentials, and recounts of the incredible feats of Buffy Summers. Evenings were spent educating them on the greatest sci-fi and fantasy hits of cinematic and television history. With his Slayers, he was happy. He’d found his team, his family. He belonged. 

At night, he was alone. 

Andrew hated being alone. He hated the way it left him feeling cold and empty, while his stomach knotted with dread and his mind wandered to ‘what if’s’... What if no one ever came back for him? What if they abandoned him, like his parents had? What if he was trapped alone forever, with only silence and darkness for company? 

As a child, he tried to drown the thoughts with stories, immersing himself in fictional worlds where the characters would never leave him. It was not uncommon for him to fall asleep with the TV flickering in front of him, or a comic book clutched to his chest. 

Once he joined the Trio, his anxiety eased, for he was hardly ever alone. Still, before big missions, he would sometimes have anxious dreams. Dreams where something would go wrong. The get-away car wouldn’t start, or the alarm system wasn’t correctly disabled, and they would get caught. A security guard would show up and separate him from his friends. They would take Warren first, then Jonathan, and then they would come for him. He’d wake up with a silent scream in his throat, his heart pounding. Then he opened his eyes to the sight of his friends. 

They never noticed. Warren was usually awake, his back to Andrew, tinkering on some new tech project. Jonathan would be snoring on a couch or chair nearby, usually with the TV on in front of him. 

The sight of his friends was all it took to calm Andrew’s heart. It didn’t matter if a storm raged outside, or wolves howled in the distance. Andrew wasn’t afraid. His friends were there. He was safe. With that knowledge, he would roll over and slip into a deep peaceful sleep. 

Then Warren died and Andrew’s safety was shattered. 

The nightmares became worse. He dreamed of Willow skinning Warren alive, again and again, right in front of him. Sometimes, he was too afraid to do anything but watch silently from the shadows. Sometimes, he would stand up to Willow, begging her to stop, but it never made any difference - in the end, he would wake up to a dingy room in Mexico with an ache in his heart and tears in his eyes and the painful knowledge that Warren was dead. 

And then there were the good dreams. The dreams where he and Warren were reunited and Andrew couldn’t remember why he missed Warren so much, but only that he did. When he felt a weight lift from his chest as he wrapped his arms around his friend and Warren playfully teased him - “Dude, I’ve been gone a week! Don’t tell me you’ve been laying around, moping all this time.” What Andrew remembered most about these dreams was the relief, the joy that came from everything finally working out, similar to the joy of returning home from a successful mission - and then the heart-shattering pain that followed when he woke to nothing but the dark of a cheap foreign motel room and the memory of Warren’s death. 

The First had appeared to him on such a night, after the painful reality had returned to him and the tears were just starting to fall. Andrew thought he was still dreaming. But when “Warren” spoke, when he ushered him out of bed and into the hall so they could talk without fear of waking Jonathan, Andrew felt the very-real, very-grimy, floor beneath him, and his heart stopped aching.

Of course, it hadn’t really been Warren. But Andrew had believed - or wanted to believe - that it was Warren so badly, he killed his best friend. 

Jonathan had been an outstanding friend to Andrew, long before Mexico. In high school, he would invite him over for movie nights. Whenever Andrew was upset over something someone had teased him about, or showed up scraped or bruised from being bullied, Jonathan had always reassured him. “Don’t listen to those assholes,” he would say. “They’d think Peter Parker’s a loser. What do they know?” Then he’d let Andrew pick whatever he wanted to watch. He even started recording some of Andrew’s favorite TV shows, just in case Tucker took over the TV or recorded over an episode before Andrew had time to watch it. Jonathan would watch them with Andrew, even if he’d already seen them. 

In Mexico, Jonathan continued to be the caring friend, even though he knew Andrew had been planning on ditching him. He brought it up occasionally, when Andrew was being exceptionally whiny, but for the most part, he forgave him. Jonathan knew how Andrew felt about Warren - he probably knew even more than Andrew had known himself at the time. He would bring it up here and there, but Andrew would get defensive or change the subject, and Jonathan would let it go. 

Until that night, a few weeks after they’d arrived in Mexico. They’d just gotten back from a long day’s work of moving boxes, when Andrew sat down on the bed and burst into tears. Jonathan didn’t say anything, but brought him a cold towel and put a comforting hand on his back. 

After a while, when Andrew’s sobs had died down into sniffles, Jonathan said quietly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Andrew insisted. He shook his head and wiped his face with the towel Jonathan had given him. “It’s just… Warren’s dead.”

“I know,” said Jonathan, with a tone of sympathy that implied he understood the weight of what Andrew said.

“I miss him so much.” Andrew spoke quietly, looking down at the floor as he hugged a pillow to his chest. “It… it hurts.”

“I know,” Jonathan said again. “But it’ll get better, in time. At least, that’s what people say. I wouldn’t know.”

Andrew frowned, still staring down at the floor. 

“That’s probably not want you want to hear right now, I get it.” Jonathan moved from his friend’s side and stood directly in front of him. “Andrew -”  
When Andrew made no attempt to look up, Jonathan let out a breath of heated annoyance. “Warren was a jerk -”

That got Andrew’s attention. He turned to Jonathan with a glare across his tear-stained face.

Jonathan raised his hands in a form of surrender. “I’m not saying he deserved what happened. Hell, I miss him too, sometimes. But, he wasn’t all good. You have to know that. He did things - made us do things - that hurt people.”

Andrew’s glare slipped into a frown. He nodded, slowly, still watching Jonathan with suspicion. 

“I don’t know what he told you, but he told me a lot of things that were lies. He told us a lot of lies. And Katrina -”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Andrew snapped. 

“He killed her,” Jonathan continued. “You can’t just ignore that. Warren killed his ex-girlfriend, someone he claimed to love. Whatever he said to you… you know he was never coming for you, right?”

Andrew hugged the pillow tighter to his chest. His shoulders slumped as he nodded, slowly. “You’re right. But… but, I still -”_ love _him, Andrew thought, and was immediately horrified by the idea. There was no way what he felt for Warren was love - it couldn’t be, right? Sure, he’d admired Warren, felt a deep connection with Warren, and imagined a life where the two of them could be happy together, but ‘love’ seemed too powerful - too scary - to consider. 

He felt Jonathan watching him as the pause dragged out too long. “- miss him,” he finished in a rush. If his face hadn’t already been pink from crying, it would have been from embarrassment.

Jonathan gave him a knowing look that conveyed he had picked up on the unspoken words. He shuffled over to Andrew and sat down beside him. Hesitantly, he gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. 

Andrew leaned against his side, sniffling as he tried (and failed) to hold back tears. He felt Jonathan stiffen at the unexpected contact, but quickly relax as he wrapped his arms around Andrew, pulling him into a hug. Andrew sunk into the hug with a sob. He wrapped his arms tight around Jonathan and cried into his shoulder until he stopped feeling so sad and just felt overwhelmingly tired. He wanted to sleep, but he didn’t want Jonathan to let go. He didn’t want to lose the warmth and safety of his best friend, so he shut his eyes, still cradled against Jonathan’s chest, and listened to the sound of his breathing and the slow, steady beat of his heart. 

When Andrew woke the next morning, Jonathan was gone, but there was a fresh cup of water and a granola bar placed out for him with a note that said Jonathan had gone into work early so that Andrew could take the morning off. 

That was the first morning that Andrew had felt happy in weeks. He made a mental note to find a way to repay Jonathan, to thank him for being such a good friend. He was thinking cookies. He’d find a way to bake Jonathan’s favorite cookies. 

Of course, he’d killed him instead. 

Then the nightmares became about Jonathan. About the look of confusion on Jonathan’s face as Andrew stabbed him. About the blood that poured out, and kept pouring out, soaking into the seal until all that was left was Jonathan’s corpse. 

“I’m sorry,” Andrew would mumble in his sleep. “I’m so sorry.”

Being sorry wasn’t enough to bring Jonathan back. It could never change the fact that, when Andrew woke, he was weighed down by guilt as heavy as the darkness around him. 

Then there was Anya. Andrew knew he wasn’t responsible for her death, but the guilt still gnawed his stomach when the others spoke her name. If he had been stronger, faster, more competent, less afraid - if he had been useful - then maybe, just maybe, she would still be alive. 

Anya told him so in his dreams. Sometimes it was in the brash scolding tone she’d used to tell him to stop filming and pay attention. Sometimes it was in a kinder, more reassuring manner followed by “Ah, well, you tried your best. It’s not like you’re the Slayer or a powerful witch. You can’t help that you aren’t powerful like Buffy or Willow. And hey, you tried. You should get a shiny participation trophy for that. It could say ‘I survived the apocalypse while better people died.’ You could display it alongside all your little action figures.”

All Andrew could manage to say was, “I’m sorry.”

Unlike Jonathan, Anya accepted his apologies. It made him miss her even more. 

Sometimes, Andrew dreamed of Spike. The whole scoundrel-turned hero vibe Spike brought to the group was very impressive - very Han Solo, if Han had been a bit more brutal in his past. But the manner in which Spike handled himself, the ease in which he blocked attacks, fought off demons, and protected the Slayers while still looking cool had Andrew certain Spike was invincible. 

And yet, Spike had died along with Anya. Sometimes Andrew would dream of his death - he always imagined it very heroic, with a long drawn out goodbye, first to Buffy, then to Andrew himself. “Save yourself,” Spike would say, “Don’t mind me. I’ve had a good long life. Several of them, in fact.” 

Andrew knew it was a lie. From what he pieced together about Spike’s life, his time in Sunnydale had been hell, and it hadn’t been much better before that. Plus, Spike had done a lot of evil stuff without his soul, and he had only just begun his journey of redemption. It wasn’t fair for him to die so soon. 

Part of Andrew could never fully accept Spike’s death, which was probably why he so frequently dreamed of Spike returning, intact and ready to rejoin the fight with some perfect explanation for why it took him so long to return. These dreams gave him hope that stung as time passed and the likelihood of Spike’s survival dwindled. 

Sometimes, all the dreams would merge together, until he couldn’t take it anymore. Until he was hiding bags under his eyes, fighting to stay awake in lessons, and dreading to fall asleep at night. He had to make them stop. 

He stood up to Warren first, in one of those of false-hope dreams where Warren returned to the Trio’s secret headquarters, acting like nothing had happened. Andrew didn’t let him in. “I’m sorry, Warren,” he said simply. “You don’t belong here anymore. You left and you’re not welcome back.” 

The door shut, and Warren left Andrew’s dreams for a very long time. 

Then he faced Jonathan, in a dream where Jonathan’s ghost cornered him in a graveyard and accused him of being a terrible friend. 

Instead of arguing, running away, or coming up with excuses, as he usually did when Jonathan showed up in his dreams. Andrew faced Jonathan and admitted, “You’re right. I was a terrible friend. And I’m sorry. I’d do anything to make it up to you, to fix it. But I don’t have a DeLorean or TARDIS - I can’t go back in time and change what happened. What I can promise is that I’ll never do anything like that again. I’ll never betray my friends. I hope you understand that’s the best I can give you right now.”

Ghost-Jonathan said he would hold Andrew to that promise, but he stopped haunting him as much. Occasionally, he even returned as the supportive friend he had been in real life.

Andrew promised Anya he would train harder so he could better protect his friends. “I’m getting stronger,” he told her. “I’m learning three different fighting styles and training in all sorts of weapons. I’m going to become the best warrior I can to protect my Slayers in battle.”

Anya was pleased by the idea. “And Xander,” she added. “Protect Xander. But, if he replaces me with some rebound girlfriend, don’t go out of your way to save her. Or, maybe save her, but let her get maimed a bit first.” 

To Spike, Andrew promised he would spread the word of his noble feats - of the vampire who loved so deeply he earned back his soul and embarked on a quest for redemption where he sacrificed himself to save the world. He also promised not to give up hope that Spike was still out there, somewhere, alive (or undead). 

As time wore on, Andrew’s nights became more restful. His Slayers never brought it up, but they noticed the difference. The bags under his eyes faded, and his yawning became less frequent. The light in his room remained off through the night, and he was seen making midnight rounds less often. 

One night, several months after he’d moved to Italy, he woke with his breath caught in his lungs, his heart pounding furiously. He sat up, shoving the covers off. The details of his dream were already fading, but the feeling of panic lingered. He took a deep breath, leaning back against the headboard. 

He turned to his nightstand where he usually kept a glass of water (a habit he’d picked up from Jonathan). Only today, the glass was empty. With a sigh, he picked up the empty glass, got out of bed, and slipped quietly into the hall. 

Moonlight crept between the curtains, casting just enough light to navigate. It felt strange to walk the halls with everyone asleep. Usually, the place was bustling with Slayers hurrying to get ready, prep for training sessions, or taking a much needed break from Slayer duties to relax and unwind. Now, the hall was so silent, Andrew could hear the floorboards creak with every step. 

He reached the living room and stopped. One of the curtains had been drawn back, the window open, letting in the glow of distant streetlights and a refreshingly cool breeze. One of the new Slayers sat in front of it, arms folded against the windowsill, head leaned forward so the breeze brushed her bangs across her face. She wore a baggy tank top, plaid pajama bottoms, and a distant expression that Andrew couldn’t quite decipher. 

He recognized her as Posey, his newest recruit. She’d only been training a few weeks, but she’d shown promising potential so far. He wondered why she was awake and out of bed at this hour - she’d been there long enough to have adjusted to the time zone. 

He cleared his throat, announcing his presence. She turned towards him, startled, and let out a breath of relief when she realized who it was. 

He smiled reassuringly and waved at her, crossing the living room until he was close enough they could speak in hushed whispers. 

“Sorry,” Posey whispered, scrambling to her feet. “Did I wake you?”

Andrew shook his head and raised the empty glass, pointing to it with his opposite hand. “I was just getting water. Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, fine.” 

“Um, then why are you out of bed?”

She shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh. Ok.” Andrew waited for her to say more, but she was looking down at the floor in silence. Before the silence could become uncomfortable, Andrew broke it by adding, “Is something bothering you? Or, did you just have too much caffeine or something?” 

Eyes downcast, she shook her head. When she looked back up at him, her expression was cautious, as if she was trying to decide if she could trust him enough to confide in him or not. 

Andrew fidgeted nervously, suddenly worried that there was something bothering his Slayer that he should have been aware of. He wanted to prove to her that she could trust him, so he said quickly, “If one of the other girls is causing trouble, or if I did something wrong, you can tell me -”

“No,” she shook her head. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just… I had a nightmare.”

“Oh,” said Andrew, visibly relaxing. Nightmares were something he could handle. 

“It’s stupid, I know." 

“It’s not stupid,” Andrew reassured her with a look of sympathy. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

She shook her head. “What’s the point? It’s not real.”

“Maybe not, but it feels real, doesn’t it? It’s like… when Luke goes into that cave on Degobah and confronts Darth Vader, only to realize he is Darth Vader - except, he’s not, obviously, but the force is showing him that he could become like Vader, if he gives into the Dark Side -”

Andrew paused for breath and Posey said quickly, “I’m not following you.”

He looked at her in shock. “You haven’t seen Star Wars?”

“Not since I was, like, eight.”

Andrew shook his head and sighed. “We’ll worry about that later. The point is - even though Luke’s vision wasn’t real, he wasn’t stupid to fear it. It could have been real, and that’s the scary thing. But instead of running from it, he learned from it. The same is true for nightmares.”

“But what if mine is real? What if it already happened? What if...” she took a deep breath and crossed her arms tight across her chest. “What if people died?”

Andrew shifted his weight. He’d asked himself this same question many times before and didn’t have a good answer. Instead of answering right away, he moved closer and put a hand on her shoulder in reassurance. “That’s harder,” he admitted. “But there’s still something to learn from it. I like to think it’s the mind’s way of trying to fix things, tying the loose ends of a story, so we can stop dwelling on the bad and move on, making sure nothing like that happens again.”

Posey nodded, slowly. “Does it work?”

Andrew shrugged, letting his arm fall from her shoulder to his side. “It depends on the person, I guess.”

“Do you still miss them?” 

Andrew opened his mouth to ask who, but Posey continued - “The friends you lost in Sunnydale?”

Andrew nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“Do you - have nightmares about it?”

Andrew hesitated. It would be so easy to lie, to pretend he had mastery over his emotions and his past - to pretend that pain disappeared over time. But she was his Slayer and he owed her the truth. “Sometimes,” he admitted, quietly. Silence followed the word, broken only by the night breeze howling against the window.

Andrew looked away from her and continued towards the kitchen. “I had them a lot at first, but they’re rarer now. And they do get easier, in time, once you get to know the team better - when you have many living, breathing - well, mostly breathing - friends surrounding you. They help you make all these good memories that sort of overpower the bad.”

He returned with two glasses of water, offering one to Posey. 

She took it with a short-lived expression of gratitude and cupped it in both hands, sipping it slowly. When she brought it away from her lips, she turned back to Andrew. “Do you think that could be true for me too?”

“Think what could be true?”

“The part about having friends here.”

Andrew grinned back at her. “Absolutely.”

She returned his smile with a genuine one of her own and downed the rest of her water. 

Andrew was relieved to see the light return to her eyes. “So, um, do you want to watch a movie or something?” 

Posey shook her head and yawned. “I think I’ll head back to bed.”

“Good idea. Training starts in a few hours. But, if you need to sleep in, don’t worry about being late.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be there.” Posey brushed past him with a tired smile and headed down the hall, her bare feet pattering gently across the carpet. Before she rounded the corner, she paused and turned back. “Oh, and Andrew -?”

“Yeah?”

“Pleasant dreams.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something that bridged what we know of Andrew from the show with what we see of him in the comics, and this idea popped up. It would have been nothing more than some random thoughts saved on my computer if not for  
[Kiran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiranInBlue/pseuds/KiranInBlue), who inspired me to finish this, and then beta read it. Thank you, Kiran! I am so grateful to have met someone who loves Andrew as much as I do!


End file.
